The Haunted Contractor
by Webster
Summary: The Winchesters investigate a poltergeist and turn up a much larger problem. Meanwhile, Sam's latest arm injury hurts a bit more than he expected.  Dislocation, fracture and pain.


Ultimately, Sam should have known better than to land that way. But they hadn't expected the spirit to attack while they were casing the empty house in broad daylight, and they were caught off guard. When a force slammed into his chest, he flew right off the stairway and slammed into the hallway floorboards, left arm outstretched. A hot lance of pain tore through him and his elbow gave with an audible pop.

"Fuck!" Dean yelled. He ran down the stairs and grabbed Sam, who was already rolling back to his feet, battle-mind driving away pain. "Can you walk?"

Sam nodded fiercely.

"Let's get out of here," Dean ordered. He picked up Sam's gear and hustled out the door.

As soon as they'd climbed back into the car, Sam seemed to flatten himself into the seat, left arm cradled in his right.

"Let me see it."

Sam slid his upper body a few inches closer.

"Shirt off?"

Sam began undoing the buttons, one at a time. Trying not to jostle his left arm, he slid most of himself out of the flannel, letting Dean pull off the left sleeve.

"Well?" He asked tightly. "You going to put it back in?"

"What is it with you and arm dislocations?" Dean asked, running his fingers over the rapidly swelling joint. "I swear, I've lost track. I mean, do you have any-" and on that word, Dean tightened his grip and slid Sam's elbow neatly back into place.

Sam let out a yelp, quickly cut off.

"Better?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam replied, still wide eyed and breathing hard. "I swear, that hurts more than a shoulder dislocation."

"Yeah, genius, that's because you've dislocated your shoulder more times than 's been arrested. Hurts more on a healthy joint."

Sam shook his head to drive out the image of Jennifer Lopez. "Okay, so what are we going to do about the house?"

"Well, first we're going to wrap your arm and get ice on it. Then we'll figure it out.

Not twenty minutes later, Sam sat on his bed with one arm stretched out across the headboard, a fresh baggie of ice neatly tucked into an ACE bandage. He flipped through case notes with his free hand. "All I know is, this is no cursed object."

Dean snorted. "Not unless the front door is cursed. We'd barely walked in."

"I think we're looking at a heavy duty haunting, maybe even a poltergeist."

When Dean returned with food, Sam was still intent on his laptop. He looked up as Dean entered. "I think I might know what's going on here. What you said about a cursed door? You may be right."

"Say what?"

"Or cursed construction materials, anyway. I couldn't find anything in the history of the house, the land or any of the residents. But, before the last family moved in, a construction company remodeled it. Checked the company, and it seems they make a habit of salvaging parts from demolished homes. Gives new places a _lived-in feeling_, they say. Or, apparently, a died-in feeling."

Dean groaned and covered his eyes. "How long has this company been running around selling pre-haunted houses?"

"About four years. They're out of business now, though."

"Great. You don't happen to have a good cleansing ritual, do you? Maybe one for an entire _county_?"

The corner's of Sam's mouth twitched. "I think we need to check them the hard way. Why don't you get us some papers? I'm thinking inspectors from the electric company."

"How many homes are we talking about?"

"Forty-seven. But most of them are in just a couple little neighborhoods, that makes it easier."

"Forty-seven potentially haunted houses and still no plan to un-haunt even one of them. I'm not really hearing 'easy' in that."

Sam shifted his arm uncomfortably. "Actually, I was thinking about that. Being uprooted, being separated from the buildings they were originally attached to like that, it might have made the spirits angrier, but it's probably weakened their attachment to the world. We _could_ try to identify the spirits responsible, but that's a lot of extra salt-and-burns."

"Yeah, with only three arms for digging, too. What's plan B?"

"Cleansing ritual."

"Do we need to go in?" Dean asked pointedly.

"Not until the end of it."

"Well, get out your herbs. We can test that ritual tonight."

The ritual went off without a hitch, the herbs buried at the corners of the house paralyzing the spirit long enough for them to run in and finish the cleansing. Dean made a clean sweep with the EMF meter before they headed off to bed.

"Twenty-three homes in this development, all built by the ghost builders. This is the biggest clump."

"That street?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, and a few other streets off of it."

"Huh." Dean parked a couple blocks away from the entrance, pulled out a toolkit and tossed Sam the EMF meter. Then he scaled a nearby telephone pole. Sam's arm throbbed just watching.

Abruptly, the neighborhood went silent. Quiet enough that Sam's indignant hiss sounded like a shout, "Tell me you didn't just trigger a blackout."

"Ill turn the lights back on when we're done. I just need some clean readings."

Sam put a hand over his face and covered his eyes. Then he began scanning the first house in the development, as Dean worked his way up the other side of the street.

Two hours later, they met back at the car.

"One strong signal, two weak ones, and one house I couldn't get a clean reading on because they have a great big generator. "

"I found three worth an indoor sweep."

Dean glanced at the utility truck, pulling into the development. "Time to book," he warned.

Sam thought wistfully of leaving. His arm had swelled wickedly inside the sleeve of his workman's uniform, and all the moving around was making the pain worse. Still, they had seven suspicious houses right in front of them, and delaying even a single day could mean injury or death to one of the people inside.

"No, time to get different tools," Sam replied.

Dressed in their neatest jeans and flannel, toting toolkits, they knocked on the first door.

"Afternoon, ma'am," Dean began, flashing a license and showing his best _trust me_ grin. "We represent the County Board. It's come to our attention that Green's Contracting may have used substandard, potentially hazardous construction materials in constructing some of their houses."

A young woman frowned at him. "What do you mean, substandard?"

"Bad wiring. There's been one incident already, sent somebody to the hospital." All of which was more or less true. "Have you had an electrical problems? Flickering lights, weird appliance malfunctions, anything like that?"

The woman stepped back slightly, motioning them to come in. "Matter of fact, I have. The electrician can't explain it."

"Any other weird problems with the house? A company that screws up one thing that badly…"

"No, just the lights."

"So, probably not too dangerous yet," Dean muttered, then raised his voice. "Green's electrician was a little… creatively stupid… sometimes. I'd like to check your fuse box, while my partner checks the outdoor connections."

It was a little awkward with only one working hand, but Sam managed to plant the four bags in the soil around the house before Dean was done fiddling with the fuse box.

They walked out of sight calmly, then broke out laughing as soon as they rounded the corner.

"We just cleansed-"

"A freaking poltergeist-"

"Broad daylight-"

"Right in front of her face-"

"-No idea!"

"This could be more fun than I thought," Dean concluded.

"Yeah. Totally," Sam grumbled.

"Your arm still bugging you?"

"A little."

"Should feel better tomorrow. You know sprains and dislocations and stuff are always the worst the second day."

It was still dark out when the throbbing in Sam's arm woke him from a dead sleep.

Clearly, Sam should have taken the time to prep another ice pack before falling into bed, because he was _not_ looking forward to moving. He raised the arm straight overhead, then levered himself up as smoothly as possible. Pulling on shoes was out of the question, so he snatched a key, a baggie and a knife from the nightstand and crept out the door, stepping over the salt lines.

Standing outside the motel beneath a buzzing yellow light, his arm did not look good. The elbow was almost twice its normal size and had begun to discolor along the outside of his arm. He had no idea how he'd fit this mess in the sleeve of his worker's uniform. Or get back to sleep.

Ice, definitely. Ice could cure anything.

He slipped the key and the switchblade into his pocket and set out for the ice machine, left arm resting awkwardly against his head.

Three hours later, Dean's eyes snapped open. A thin line of sunlight peered out from between the tightly closed curtains, lighting up Sam's arm where it lay on a stack of pillows. A plastic bag was draped over it, and the pillows were soaked with water. Clearly Sam's skill at making ice packs one handed in the dark was not up to snuff.

Dean peered at the arm. It looked considerably worse than it had the previous day. In fact, "Sam?"

Sam raised his head and blinked, annoyed. "What is it?"

"How does your arm feel?"

"Fantastic," Sam mumbled sarcastically. "Can I go back to sleep now?"

"Seriously. It doesn't look good."

"Neither does your face."

"Can you move it?"

Sam managed to wiggle it a few degrees.

"Okay. We're going to the hospital."

Dean wound up putting Sam's boots on.

"Surgery? Really? You can't just put a cast on it?"

"Casting a radial head fracture is a bad plan. If it's immobilized for more than a week or two, you'll suffer a permanent loss of mobility. With a minor fracture, we'd just strap it up until the swelling came down, then get you moving, but this is too big for that. It's not a difficult surgery, I'm just going to bind the broken piece of bone into place. It'll be splinted for one week, then you'll begin physical therapy."

"And after that?" Dean put in.

"He should make a full recovery, but it'll take a lot of work. What kind of work do you do?" the doctor asked, turning back to Sam.

"Construction," he replied automatically. It was a decent enough lie when it came to doctors. "When can I go back?"

"You might be able to do desk work a few days after the surgery, but heavy two-handed jobs will have to wait at least a couple of months."

Sam frowned. "We'll make it work," Dean promised. "When can you do the surgery?"

"Not right now, maybe tomorrow or the day after. Janet will check the schedule and let you know."

Sam was scheduled for surgery the next afternoon. To his annoyance, Dean insisted he stay in the motel room until then, arm propped as high as possible. "You heard the man," Dean pointed out. "It swells any more, they won't be able to operate."

Sam gritted his teeth into something resembling an agreeable smile. It did hurt less that way, and he'd finally managed to find JUST the right position.

"And, hey, we ain't leaving town until we're finished with the job, so, no hurry, right?"

"Sure. Plenty of time to get caught committing insurance fraud. No problems."

"We'll figure something out. Gotta be able to heft a shotgun, right Sammy?"

Dean went out and brought back a stack of DVDs and a generous sackful of sandwiches. "You aren't allowed to eat beforehand, so I figure you can eat a few now and one right before bed."

Sam nodded thoughtfully, grabbing a sandwich without looking up from his laptop. He dragged the last two fingers of his good hand down the mousepad, half a turkey sandwich clutched between his thumb and forefinger.

"What are you looking at?"

"We probably cleaned out that development, but there are twenty-four more potentially haunted houses out there. I'm running the addresses through the usual databases."

"Why? We gotta check all of them."

"Priorities, Dean."

"Good point. If anything's actually hurting people, we gotta hit that first. Find anything?"

"Nothing so far, one break-in three years ago, probably a normal human robbery, one ambulance call for a heart attack- Wait! 122 Edgemont. One call to the police about a suspicious prowler, one ambulance call for a home accident. All in the past year."

"Okay, that's next on the list. Anything else?"

"No. But seven of the homes are empty. Repossessed, actually, guess that's why our friends the haunted contractors went out of business."

"If they're empty, they're _last_ on my list."

"Look. It's early yet. You could probably check out number 122 and at least a couple of the others from that development."

"It's, ah, almost two o'clock. Think I'll just stay here."

"Dean?"

"What? I rented all the pirates movies!"

"Go to work. Seriously. I'll hang here, and see if I can dig up anything more."

As soon as Dean left, Sam shut his eyes and leaned back against the headboard. The arm was too sore to touch, but he rubbed at the shoulder, hoping to ease the pain indirectly. _Okay, fracture. That_ would _explain why my elbow feels like a demon tried to rip my arm off._

Sam turned back to the laptop. Nothing more to do about the arm now.

Dean rose as the surgeon entered the waiting room. Over an hour had passed since Sam vanished down the corridor.

"I found two separate chips. The larger one I fixed in place, the other was too small to reattach, so I removed it. The loss of such a small piece of bone should have little impact on the function of his arm in the long run. Call my office tomorrow, he needs to come in next Thursday to have the splint removed. We'll schedule physical therapy, too."

The last was shouted through a closing door as the surgeon returned to his lair.

The office phone would never ring, Dean knew. By Thursday, with any luck, they'd have this case wrapped up and be a couple states away. Sam's therapy, well, he hadn't found quite enough on the Internet, but they could swing by a college with a PT program, maybe steal a book.

They'd manage one way or another.


End file.
